Self-Image

Reading time: 4 minutes

In the familiar Matthew 6 passage, I’ve replaced “treasure” with “value.”

“Do not store up for yourselves [value] on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves [value] in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your [value] is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:19-21 NIV

This passage teaches us to value what will last forever over what can be lost. Later in verse 24, it teaches that a person cannot serve both God and money. However, just because you don’t serve money, doesn’t mean you automatically value the right things in the right ways. Do you value God and yourself in the right way?

God’s Value of You is Constant

To value yourself and God appropriately first requires understanding God’s perspective on life. Life moves through four phases, segmented by physical and spiritual birth and death:

1. God knew who you were before you were born. He’d have to in order to create you.
2. God also knew you while you were alienated from Him in sin.
3. God knows who you are as a member of His spiritual family. Believers are God’s children.
4. Finally, God knows who you will be when you are in heaven.

God’s perspective on who you are will always be different than your perspective. God sees your life in full from beginning to end (though eternal life has no end). You, however, can only become gradually aware of who you are.

God is a constant. His character is perfect and stable. He is the same today as He was in eternity past and the same as He will be in the future. Even though God’s character doesn’t change, He is still open to relationships. He has feelings about His creation. He is moved with compassion.

But we are made in God’s image, not the other way around. We share some characteristics of God, but He will always have more because He is God and we are not. God’s ways are higher than our ways. He is always several steps ahead of us.

God is love. If God is constant, then so is His love. What does this mean for you? It’s possible to break free from anxious moments. No matter how low you’ve been in life, God’s plan of redemption will eventually bring you higher. Your worth is based on who you are, not what you’ve done. You can change and leave the past behind.

Your Value of You is Changing

Your memories begin much later than God’s. From your perspective, you start out of God’s favor and must become in His favor. Before becoming a Christian, all you know is an antagonistic (at worst) or an indifferent (at best) relationship with God. Your start in debt. You are helpless to save yourself. You will be indebted to God for saving your life.

The prodigal son returned to God not with the attitude of a son, but as a lowly person undeserving of God’s goodness toward those He favors. The father treated his son as a son. The prodigal didn’t refuse his father’s offer. He went to the party his father threw for him. Read Luke 15:11-32 for the whole story.

Over the course of the story, the prodigal’s opinion of himself changed from “high apart from God” to “low apart from God” to “humble but accepting of God’s favor.” We can infer that he eventually felt overwhelmingly positive about himself because of God’s love.

Can you see how you are going through the same journey? How far along are you in accepting God’s favor? When life goes well, it’s easy to be over-confident. Prideful people believe that they don’t need God. One way or another life brings prideful people low. In a moment of weakness, it is a gift for people can recognize their need for God.

A person dependent upon God will develop genuine confidence that is balanced. You can have high self-worth if you base your worth on what God says about you. The truth of what God says will set you free from self-doubt.

What are some self-doubting beliefs that are holding you back from living your life with greatness? God doesn’t want you to live oppressed. That’s the work of the devil. God doesn’t want you to live arrogantly either, unable to see that all good things come from Him. That would also be the devil’s work.

God wants you to know your incredible value and know His incredible value. When you truly value both, you’ll be unstoppable.

Read more about discovering your worth.
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Reading time: 3 minutes

Having high expectations is good as long as they don’t come at the cost of being authentic. So, are expectations good or bad?

When you expect too much of yourself, you can never achieve an authentic life. If you are always chasing after some ideal standard, you won’t be able to appreciate who you are in the moment. An inauthentic life is never profoundly satisfying.

However, if you don’t expect enough of yourself, you also won’t be able to achieve an authentic life. You’ll be resigned to your shortcomings. You’ll assume that the way you are today is as good as it gets.

Be Authentic: It’s Okay to Cry

One common way to be inauthentic is to hold back your tears. Big boys or girls don’t cry. But what does it cost you to maintain the appearance that nothing phases you?

Keeping your feelings stuffed inside splits you in two psychologically. The public (or visible) you takes on too high expectations while the private (or hidden) you takes on too low expectations. This puts you in a body that is trying to be two different people at the same time. The more a person insists on living this way, the more likely they will experience a psychological breakdown.

No one should have to pretend to have their life together just to keep a relationship. But it’s all too common for someone to believe I’m too much or I’m too little.

Be Authentic: It’s Okay to Risk

The person you are today isn’t all that God has planned you to be. While being genuine doesn’t mean pretending to be someone greater than you are, it also doesn’t mean embracing a negative self-image. The one is too prideful while the other is too humble.

To seek to be closer to who you really are requires risking exposure. Some people will find out you aren’t who you’ve been leading them to believe. You might also find out that you’re never going to be like someone you idolize. Both of these realizations can produce some sadness.

If you’re going to choose an authentic life, be prepared for some initial disillusionment. But it should resolve quickly. If you work at accepting your God-given identity, you’ll find you’ve only lost what was never true and gained what was always true.

Be Authentic to Maximize Your Belonging

God wants us to embrace exactly who we are: who He made us to be. He gives each of us the faith to see our true selves. Because God planned for you to be your authentic self, you will automatically belong with Him and all your other spiritual brothers and sisters.

You must be willing to understand your identity and act with integrity because others are depending on you to be authentic.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Because of the privilege and authority God has given me, I give each of you this warning: Don’t think you are better than you really are. Be honest in your evaluation of yourselves, measuring yourselves by the faith God has given us. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.

Romans 12:2-5 NLT

Don’t compromise who you are (God’s design) for any reason.

Would anyone like to share some ways they struggle to be authentic?

Read more about being genuine.
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Reading time: 3 minutes

Skeletons belong in the ground, not in the closet. Likewise, sin belongs on the cross, not in the heart. It takes courage to properly clean up the mess in our hearts. Everyone is quick to hide their shame and slow to dispose of it.

Who hasn’t miraculously cleaned up a room by shoving all the clutter into the closet? Your guests can enjoy the illusion of a clean home. And you can enjoy your moment of pure genius, at least until a guest opens the door to hang up their coat or attempt to find the bathroom.

Half-Hearted Cleaning Lacks Courage

Closets are for storing junk out of the way, but hearts aren’t supposed to have hidden rooms. Jesus is against tactics that disguise the true state of the heart. Such efforts are especially insidious when the person attempting the beautification project believes that beauty is only skin deep.

“What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

Matthew 23:27-28 NLT

Cleaning only the outside (being concerned only with appearance) is for non-believers. It’s impossible for a non-believer to clean the inside. That’s Jesus’s point to the Pharisees: they don’t know Him.

God tends to the hearts of those He calls His own (1 Samuel 16:7, Hebrews 12:4-11). God knows about your closet even if you’ve long forgotten about what is inside.

Whole-Hearted Cleaning Requires Courageous Humility

No one has a pure heart, at least not without help. Instead of humbling ourselves by asking for Jesus’s help, we scurry around doing what we can to manage the dirt in our lives. God appreciates our willingness, but I’m sure He must get a chuckle from seeing our attempt. Human cleaning efforts don’t eliminate the dirt; they only rearrange it.

On your own, you lack the power to be perfect. Your best effort can only make the outside look better. But if you are a believer, Jesus can make your heart clean.

To properly bury shame once and for all requires uncovering it. That’s because the antidote to shame is acceptance. All of us desperately need this affirmation of our value because the sins of our hearts only reveal our inadequacies.

To accept anything, you must first see it for what it is. How can anyone overcome shame when they are afraid to look at it? However, even when you can endure the awareness of your shortcomings, more is required than knowing God accepts you if you want to be free of shame.

You will know God’s acceptance has eliminated your shame when you can accept yourself. You can only accept yourself because God accepts you. However, God’s acceptance hasn’t done you any good until you can accept you. If you can’t accept yourself that means you haven’t fully embraced God’s acceptance.

Ask for Courage

If you have courage, pray like this:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:10 ESV

If you lack the courage to face your shame, ask God for strength. Then look to Him for the antidote.

I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

Psalm 34:4-5 NIV

All that is left now is to believe God accepts you. If you continue to struggle with this, you might benefit from Christian Identity Therapy to help you gain the courage to make God’s acceptance real in your life.

More help for overcoming shame.
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